Raid 1 or Raid 10

[qsac]

General Question --

I can only afford 4 Hard disks. Would you suggest 2 Raid 1 or one raid 0+1.

i assume the raid 0+1 would faster.

Thanks for any insight.

Q

 

[mrdenny]

What are you planning on putting on the array? That will deturmin the configuration of the drives.

If these will be the only drives in use for the database server (assuming that the OS will be on these drives as well) then go for 2 RAID 1 arrays. One for the OS and one for the database files and log files. As long as your database load on the disks is fairly light you should be ok.

If you can get another disk or two for the OS, I would still stick with 2 RAID 1 arrays. This time one for the data files and one for the transaction log files.

For the best performance you want to get as many components as possible on there own drives/arrays. If you start sharing drives like in the RAID 0+1 array, then when the OS needs to write to the drive it will slow down the database. And considdering how often the OS writes to the drive (page file, event logs, other little log files, mail files if your using mail, etc) you want that kept away from your database files. I would definetly do the best you can to try to confince the powers that be to let you get a couple of small 18 or 36 Gig drives for the OS, to you can have your database and logs on seperate drives.



Denny

--Anything is possible. All it takes is a little research. (Me)